Why Aren't I Laughing About McCain's Age?

Face it, John McCain: You’re old. How old? “When I was born, you were nearly six years older than my mother,” writes Charles Blow in the New York Times. “Now, seven years into her retirement, you want a new job: the hardest job in the world. Wow!” This worries Blow, who's not alone: A recent poll reveals that 25% of swing-state voters say they're less likely to vote McCain because of his age.

McCain's fount of lame age jokes reveals that he gets the problem, but his SNL quip that the next president should be “very, very, very old” was more cringe-worthy than funny, Blow writes. And his admission that he is computer illiterate, in an age when al-Qaeda runs an online operation, wasn't funny at all. “My mother has learned to use a computer,” Blow writes. “It’s easy. No joke.” (More age stories.)